Archive for May 4th, 2008

Recently, one of our readers (Thanks Elaine), emailed us concerning this highly offensive cartoon. I find this kind of propaganda disheartening. I also find it to be a huge waste of creative ability. First, lets get some things out in the open. Yes, I am a raging hippie and therefore a huge environmentalist. While I may not agree with the ELF’s methods (i.e. burning down empty buildings or spray painting hummers), I understand the sentiment.

Secondly, the comparison of environmental activism to terrorism baffles me. Terrorism, by all definitions, is not about method but about purpose. The goal of “terrorists” is to instill fear into people in order to further their ideological goals. Terrorist groups are cohesive and clear in their objectives. The Earth Liberation Front is at best a disbanded group of men and women who share a general concern for the environment. They act as individuals, and not as a group. They aren’t trying to intimidate people into becoming tree huggers. Believe me, environmentalists are smarter than that. They know they can’t change views by burning down buildings.

Calling this terrorism seems to be a stretch for me. These environmental activists take great pains in not harming people and their goal is not to instill fear, but rather to punish the fat wallets of multimillion dollar corporations who profit from the environment’s destruction. It amazes me what deliberate use of words can do to skew the facts or detract from them all together. By making corporate CEOs the victim of terrorism, it makes them void of all wrongdoing in the matter. It also gives cartoonists like this moron the freedom to buy into the hype and to attract more readers. How sad.

What is even more disturbing about this cartoon is the idea that earth liberation is a fat vs skinny issue. The artist makes it seem like being fat and caring about the environment somehow make a person hypocritical. I want to make one thing painfully clear. We live in a society that divides people into polarizing categories and then assigns some unrealistic physical stereotype to each one. So, environmentalists must be skinny, white, upper class people living the “green lifestyle”. Let me tell you, I am not skinny, nor am I white, and being a student makes it impossible to be upper class, but I care more about the environment than most people I know.

As an environmentalist, this kind of propaganda makes “green living” a divisive issue, which is the last thing that we need. Caring for the environment should be unifying. After all, we all have to live in this world together. As a supporter of the fat acceptance movement, it perpetuates this notion that fat people should live their lives in secret and render themselves invisible as it relates to the issues that affect our society. We have to stop allowing people to continue to ridicule us because we are people who want to live purposeful lives. So, with that being said, I am giving this cartoonist and people like him a collective finger from all of us. We’re not going to take it anymore.